Mrs. Farida Waziri File copy

The sacked Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Mrs. Farida Waziri, on Thursday in Abuja said the commission recovered $9bn from corrupt officials during her three and a half years tenure as the commission’s helmsman.

She said this during her handing over ceremony to the commission’s acting Chairman, Mr. Ibrahim Lamorde.

She described “fighting corruption” as “a dangerous job.”

According to her, the monies have been returned to the Central Bank of Nigeria while the looted funds have been returned to their owners.

She said, “As it is normal in life, everything that has a beginning must surely have an ending. I’m highly honoured that I am handing over the relay baton to someone who is not new in the struggle.

“During my tenure, over 450 convictions were secured. Although we inherited about 10 high-profile cases in 2008, we have taken about 75 of such high-profile cases to court, with another 1,500 low-profile cases pending in courts. We also recovered over $9bn; the funds are with the CBN and some others returned to their owners and some other banks.

“Also during my tenure, we developed and deployed Eagle claw software that is changing the face of fighting cyber crime and 419 in Nigeria. Over 5,000 fraudulent e-mail addresses have so far been shut down and over 80 suspects already facing trial.”

Waziri explained that she took the mantle of leadership of EFCC with a vision to build world class institution which would stand the test of time.

-Punch

Posted by admin on Nov 29 2011. Filed under EFCC Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry